"Houses of
the Holy" Book Release Party
10/3/2008: Civil War Life Soldier's Museum,
Spotsylvania, VirginiaThe book release party for
"Historic Churches of Fredericksburg" was a total
success. Approx. 70 people turned out for an
evening of food, fellowship, and fun. I would like
to thank Terry and Jane Thomann for hosting us,
Peter Burke for playing some great music, my fellow
members of the NCWL Foundation for speaking, my
mother and father for all of their help setting up,
my wife Tracy for putting the entire theme/menu
together, and everyone else who came out and
supported my book and our charitable causes.

Peter
Burke played classic rock all night to the delight
of the crowd.
People enjoyed the café set-up and playing
music trivia games.
He donated 100% of his fee and proceeds to Bethany
Christian Services

I was
blessed to have several prominent historians from
our area in the audience including
Al and Jane Conner, D.P. Newton and John Cummings.
I was honored by their presence.

Col.
Horace McCaskill (USA Ret.), Chair of the National
Civil War Life Foundation,
joined me in a short presentation on the vision and
mission to build a new
museum in Spotsylvania dedicated to the "shared
experience" of everyone.

They set
me up to sign books in the Civil War Photography
section of their exhibit hall.
I had a lot of great conversations and made some
new friends.

The
biggest surprise of the night was when my best
friend, Mike Rogers (from my hometown)
drove 5 ½ hours just to see me. This guy and I
have known each other since we were 15. We
hadn’t seen each other in at least 8 years and this
event definitely rekindled our
friendship.